


Artefact 1973PX

by NancyBrown



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Birthday, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an alien artefact for everything in the archives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artefact 1973PX

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from coldwater1010: Ianto makes a wish, written for the tw_classic Ianto's birthday bash commentfic fest

If Ianto had tuppence for every item in the archives that included the description 'purpose and origin unknown,' he'd have, if not enough for a tidy pension, certainly sufficient funds for a decent holiday somewhere abroad. So was the joke he told himself, one of hundreds that lived only in his head, small stabs at coping with the little horrors of his daily life. The previous Torchwood Cardiff archivists had utilised any number of obscure storage systems. Jack claimed no less than four had succumbed fatally to their own filing errors but then Jack also claimed to have eaten dinosaurs, been pregnant, and shagged members of every known alien species. Ianto was certain at least some of those claims were false. Exaggerated, certainly. Hm.

As it was, much of his day was taken up by rearranging his predecessors' mistakes, without blowing himself up in the process. He suspected the original task had been assigned to scare the new guy, but it had allowed him freedom from observation. With Lisa's passing, the job was punishment. He did it anyway.

Today he was working on a set of artefacts recovered in the 1970s and left with next to no guidance as to their origin or usage. One or two had mysterious notes -- 'Ad'xtii tech per JH,' 'guidance system (?)' -- but the rest had his old nemesis 'purpose and origin unknown.' They were sorted, if such a word applied, by date and possibly by colour. No wonder the former archivists were dead.

As he hefted the next item for inspection, a purplish artefact about the size and weight of a beach ball, he muttered, "I wish I knew where to put all this."

Suddenly, Ianto quite clearly knew exactly where each item in the room ought to be stored, complete with humidity and temperature requirements, as well as safety precautions. The artefact in his hands should be kept warm, off the ground, and away from any radio-transmitting devices. Carefully, he arranged the space and stored the item, and the other artefacts. The task took him the rest of the day, making him late to make the dinner run and giving Owen another reason to berate him.

"What took you?" Jack asked, multiple questions in the one, and Ianto noticed the rest just as interested in the answer. Out of spite, he shrugged them off.

"Got wrapped up in the filing. Sorry. Will you be wanting Chinese, then?"

***

The events with the cannibals pushed all thoughts of filing out of his mind, assisted by the painkillers. Jack pushed most other thoughts from his mind, first with his renewed interest and later with his hands and his mouth and every smooth inch of his willing body. Ianto nearly forgot about the incident entirely, until he was faced with another room, this filled with artefacts from the 1930s.

'Purpose and origin unknown.' Fuckers. Also more notes with initials he knew couldn't be Jack's, and one note that could have been in Jack's own handwriting about a depleted power supply.

"Wish I knew what that meant."

He remembered.

It was stupid, and likely wouldn't work. He went to the room where he'd stored the artefact anyway. Feeling like a fool, Ianto put his hands on the purple ball. "I wish I knew why some of the notes seem to be from Jack. I also wish I knew how to file the 1934 artefacts."

Once he had correctly stored away the items, he felt a strong urge to look in the secure employee files. In theory, only the head of Torchwood could access those. In reality, Ianto had all Jack's passcodes because Jack was too lazy to retrieve his own files. Sure enough, the standard passcode worked.

Ianto read Jack's file, his real file.

Once again, unsure what to do with the information, he kept it to himself, and said not a word about it, not over coffee, not in a meeting, not in Jack's bed that same night. Almost not a word. When they were spent and panting, Jack's come on his belly, Jack's teeth resting against his throat, Ianto said, "Sometimes I think you're older than you look."

"Sometimes I think the same thing about you."

Ianto didn't try again, didn't say, "You can trust me," because they'd both know that for a lie.

***

Jack was dead on the floor, and they needed to open the Rift, needed to put everything back. Gwen said if the Rift opened, Rhys would come back, maybe they'd all come back, Jack would come back and Lisa too. And if they didn't, Ianto had another secret in the basement.

When Jack was dead again, he wandered down there, alone.

"Please," he said to the empty room. "Please," he said, holding the ball. "I wish."

Jack was still dead when he went back up to the morgue in dumb hope, and he didn't dare tell Gwen why he'd come to check.

He went to help Tosh with the Rift Manipulator.

***

When Jack was gone. Ianto was busy, they were all busy, 'busy' needed a new definition because they were all so fucking overworked it wasn't funny. Sometimes he went into the room where he'd stored the artefact, and he stared at it. What if it was what it appeared to be? What if it could be?

What if it wasn't?

What if he wished Jack back again, and Jack didn't come?

He didn't touch it. To be sure no-one else did, he marked it with a 'Not for Use' tag.

***

Only two days were missing from their memories, and despite every trick he tried, Ianto couldn't get Jack to confess he'd Retconned them but kept his own memories, so he was probably telling the truth as well. Pieces were gone. Part of Ianto wanted to know what had happened. Part of him shivered whenever he considered it, and knew this was for the best.

A change had come with his relationship with Jack. They'd restarted slowly, a few dates, a few nights together, but now they were headfirst into something neither one wanted to name. They spent more time in each other's company than not, work or leisure, and Ianto was frightened, and happy, and worried. He thought a lot about Lisa, and how good they'd been, how badly things had gone wrong.

He was alone, and a little drunk, and Jack would be looking for him soon. 'Not for Use' fell to the cold concrete.

"I wish I could see her again, one last time."

Lisa stood before him. Her smile was warm, she always had the best smiles. "Ianto."

"I miss you," he said. "I think I'm forgetting pieces of you. I think he's ... I think I'm ... "

She tiptoed closer, and placed a kiss at the edge of his mouth. Her lips felt real, she felt real. "It's all right. I don't mind."

He laughed, aching. "Are you just saying that because I want you to?"

She tapped him on the head playfully. "What do you think it means if you want me to say it?"

"Ianto?" That was Jack, outside the room. Ianto's heart leapt into his mouth. How could he possibly explain?

But Lisa was already gone.

***

It was his twenty-sixth birthday, and they were going to be too busy to do anything at all, including sleep. Without Owen and Tosh there, they were coping, but just as when Jack was gone, coping was relative, and Ianto had nearly run dry of bad jokes. He was running out of a lot of things, including birthdays.

He and Gwen never talked about it. There was nothing to say about the morbid countdown they'd started, wondering which one would die first.

The worst part, the part that robbed him of the little sleep he could edge out these days, was how badly Jack would take it, how he would blame himself, how he'd be alone. Ianto would spare Jack pain whenever possible, hated to watch him hurt, hated more to watch him die. On the rare nights they could curl up in each other's arms, Ianto listened to Jack's soft breath, soothed himself with the strong beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his lungs. No parent watching a sleeping infant was so intent.

He slipped away between missions, went down to the basement. He had to phrase it exactly right. That Jack would not be left alone for eternity. That if necessary, Ianto remain alive, young, and healthy enough to keep up with him for as long as he lived. That if not, Jack be allowed to die when he was ready.

"I wish," Ianto said.

And he lived happily ever after.


End file.
